THE SINGLE TAX -
WHAT IT IS AND WHY WE URGE IT

I shall briefly state the fundamental principles of what we who advocate it
call the Single Tax.

We propose to abolish all taxes save one single tax levied on the value of
land, irrespective of the value of the improvements in or on it.

What we propose is not a tax on real estate, for real estate includes
improvements. Nor is it a tax on land, for we would not tax all land, but
only land having a value irrespective of its improvements, and would tax
that in proportion to that value.

Our plan involves the imposition of no new tax, since we already tax land
values in taxing real estate. To carry it out we have only to abolish all
taxes save the tax on real estate, and to abolish all of that which now
falls on buildings or improvements, leaving only that part of it which now
falls on the value of the bare land, increasing that so as to take as nearly
as may be the whole of economic rent, or what is sometimes styled the
"unearned increment of land values."

That the value of the land alone would suffice to provide all needed public
revenues – municipal, county, State, and national – there is no
doubt.

To show briefly why we urge this change, let me treat (1) of its expediency,
and (2) of its justice.

From the Single Tax we may expect these advantages:

1. It would dispense with a whole army of tax gatherers and other officials
which present taxes require, and place in the treasury a much larger
proportion, of what is taken from the people, while by making government
simpler and cheaper, it would tend to make it purer. It would get rid of taxes
which necessarily promote fraud, perjury, bribery, and corruption, which lead
men into temptation, and which tax what the nation can least afford to spare
– honesty and conscience. Since land lies out-of-doors and cannot be
removed, and its value is the most readily ascertained of all values, the tax
to which we would resort can be collected with the minimum of cost and the
least strain on public morals.

2. It would enormously increase the production of wealth –

(a) By the removal of the burdens that now weigh upon industry and thrift.
If we tax houses, there will be fewer and poorer houses; if we tax
machinery, there will be less machinery; if we tax trade, there will be less
trade; if we tax capital, there will be less capital; if we tax savings
there will be less savings. All the taxes therefore that we should abolish
are those that repress industry and lessen wealth. But if we tax land
values, there will be no less land.

(b) On the contrary, the taxation of land values has the effect of making
land more easily available by industry, since it makes it more difficult for
owners of valuable land which they themselves do not care to use to hold it
idle for a large future price. While the abolition of taxes on labour and
the products of labour would free the active element of production, the
taking of land values by taxation would free the passive element by
destroying speculative land values and preventing the holding out of use of
land needed for use. If any one will but look around today and see the
unused or but half-used land, the idle labour, the unemployed or poorly
employed capital, he will get some idea of how enormous would be the
production of wealth were all the forces of production free to engage.

(c) The taxation of the processes and products of labour on one hand, and the
insufficient taxation of land values on the other, produce an unjust
distribution of wealth which is building up in the hands of a few, fortunes
more monstrous than the world has ever before seen, while the masses of our
people are steadily becoming relatively poorer. These taxes necessarily fall on
the poor more heavily than on the rich; by increasing prices, they necessitate
a larger capital in all businesses, and consequently give an advantage to large
capitals; and they give, and in some cases are designed to give, special
advantage and monopolies to combinations and trusts. On the other hand, the
insufficient taxation of land values enables men to make large fortunes by land
speculation and the increase of ground values – fortunes which do not
represent any addition by them to the general wealth of the community, but
merely the appropriation by some of what the labour of others' creates.

This unjust distribution of wealth develops on the one hand a class idle and
wasteful because they are too rich, and on the other hand a class idle and
wasteful because they are too poor. It deprives men of capital and
opportunities which would make them more efficient users. It thus greatly
diminishes production.

(d) The unjust distribution which is giving us the hundredfold millionaire
on the one side and the tramp and pauper on the other, generates thieves,
gamblers and social parasites of all kinds, and requires large expenditure
of money and energy in watchmen, policemen, courts, prisons, and other means
of defence and repression. It kindles a greed of gain and a worship of
wealth, and produces a bitter struggle for existence which fosters
drunkenness, increases insanity, and causes men whose energies ought to be
devoted to honest production to spend their time and strength in cheating
and grabbing from each other. Besides the moral loss, all this involves an
enormous economic loss which the Single Tax would save.

(e) The taxes we would abolish fall most heavily on the poorer agricultural
districts, and tend to drive population and wealth from them to the great
cities. The tax we would increase would destroy that monopoly of land which
is the great cause of that distribution of population which is crowding the
people too closely together in some places and scattering them too far apart
in other places. Families live on top of one another in cities because of
the enormous speculative prices at which vacant lots are held. In the
country they are scattered too far apart for social intercourse and
convenience, because, instead of each taking what land he can use, every one
who can grabs all he can get, in the hope of profiting by its increase of
value, and the next man must pass farther on. Thus we have scores of
families living under a single roof, and other families flying in dugouts on
the prairies afar from neighbours – some living too close to each other
for moral, mental, or physical health, and others too far separated for the
stimulating and refining influences of society. The wastes in health, in
mental vigour, and in unnecessary transportation result in great economic
losses which the Single Tax would save.

Let us turn to the moral side and consider the question of justice.

The right of property does not rest on human laws; they have often ignored and
violated it. It rests on natural laws – that is to say, the law of God.
It is clear and absolute, and every violation of it, whether committed by a man
or a nation, is a violation of the command, "Thou shalt not steal." The man who
catches a fish, grows an apple, raises a calf, builds a house, makes a coat,
paints a picture, constructs a machine, has, as to any such thing, an exclusive
right of ownership which carries with it the right to give, to sell or bequeath
that thing.

But who made the earth that any man can claim such ownership of it, or any
part of it, or the right to give, sell or bequeath it? Since the earth was
not made by us, but is only a temporary dwelling place on which one
generation of men follow another; since we find ourselves here, are
manifestly here with equal permission of the Creator, it is manifest that no
one can have any exclusive right of ownership in land, and that the rights
of all men to land must be equal and inalienable. There must be an exclusive
right of possession of land, for the man who uses it must have secure
possession of land in order to reap the products of his labour. But his
right of possession must be limited by the equal right of all and should
therefore be conditioned on the payment to the community by the possessor of
an equivalent for any special valuable privilege thus accorded him.

When we tax houses, crops, money, furniture, capital or wealth in any of its
forms, we take from individuals what rightfully belongs to them. We violate
the right of property, and in the name of the State commit robbery. But when
we tax ground values, we take from individuals what does not belong to them,
but belongs to the community, and which cannot be left to individuals
without the robbery of other individuals.

Think what the value of land is. It has no reference to the cost of
production, as has the value of houses, horses, ships, clothes, and other
things produced by labour, for land is not produced by man, it was created
by God. The value of land does not come from the exertion of labour on land,
for the value thus produced is a value of improvement. That value attaches
to any piece of land means that that piece of land is more desirable than
the land which other citizens may obtain, and that they are more willing to
pay a premium for permission to use it. Justice therefore requires that this
premium of value shall be taken for the benefit of all in order to secure to
all their equal rights.

Consider the difference between the value of a building and the value of
land. The value of a building, like the value of goods, or of anything
properly styled wealth, is produced by individual exertion, and therefore
properly belong to the individual; but the value of land only arises with
the growth and improvement of the community, and therefore properly belongs
to the community. It is not because of what its owners have done, but
because of the presence of the whole great population, that land in New York
is worth millions an acre. This value therefore is the proper fund for
defraying the common expenses of the whole population; and it must be taken
for public use, under penalty of generating land speculation and monopoly
which will bring about artificial scarcity where the Creator has provided in
abundance for all whom His providence has called into existence. It is thus
a violation of justice to tax labour, or the things produced by labour, and
it is also a violation of justice not to tax land values.

These are the fundamental reasons for which we urge the Single Tax,
believing it to be the greatest and most fundamental of all reforms. We do
not think it will change human nature. That man can never do; but it will
bring about conditions in which human nature can develop what is best,
instead of as now in so many cases, what is worst. It will permit such an
enormous production as we can now hardly conceive. It will secure an
equitable distribution. It will solve the labour problem and dispel the
darkening clouds which are now gathering over the horizon of our
civilisation. It will make undeserved poverty an unknown thing. It will
check the soul-destroying greed of gain. It will enable men to be at least
as honest, as true, as considerate, and as high-minded as they would like to
be. It will remove temptation to lying, false swearing, bribery, and law
breaking. It will open to all, even the poorest, the comforts and
refinements and opportunities of an advancing civilisation. It will thus, so
we reverently believe, clear the way for the coming of that kingdom of right
and justice, and consequently of abundance and peace and happiness, for
which the Master told His disciples to pray and work. It is not that it is a
promising invention or cunning device that we look for the Single Tax to do
all this; but it is because it involves a conforming of the most important
and fundamental adjustments of society to the supreme law of justice,
because it involves the basing of the most important of our laws on the
principle that we should do to others as we would be done by.

The readers of this article, I may fairly presume, believe, as I believe,
that there is a world for us beyond this. The limit of space has prevented
me from putting before them more than some hints for thought. Let me in
conclusion present two more:

1. What would be the result in heaven itself if those who get there first
instituted private property in the surface of heaven, and parcelled it out
in absolute ownership among themselves, as we parcel out the surface of the
earth?

2. Since we cannot conceive of a heaven in which the equal rights of God's
children to their Father's bounty is denied, as we now deny them on this
earth, what is the duty enjoined on Christians by the daily prayer: "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven?"